Amanda Knox, the American student who spent four years imprisoned before her acquittal in the 2007 slaying of her British roommate Meredith Kercher in Italy, tweeted a controversial joke about the 2020 election between President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden on Tuesday night.
“Whatever happens, the next four years can’t be as bad as that four-year study abroad I did in Italy, right?” Knox tweeted.
The message drew some laughs -- and also criticism from Twitter users who took issue with her seemingly making light of someone’s brutal death.
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“Delete this,” wrote Variety’s Meg Zukin.
Real Clear Investigations writer Mark Hemingway quote-tweeted the message and just added, “LOL.”
“Too soon,” wrote Patch journalist Karen Pilarski.
Kercher was found naked with her throat slit in her room in the Italian university town of Perugia in November 2007. Investigators said she had been sexually assaulted.
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Knox and her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were initially convicted in connection with Kercher’s slaying, but they were later acquitted before Italy’s highest court in 2015 after years of back-and-forth courtroom battles. Knox spent four years in jail during the process.
The former exchange student has decried her treatment overseas, accusing Italian prosecutors of treating her unfairly as well as blasting the media, which she said contrived a false narrative around her case.
AMANDA KNOX SAYS 'FOXY KNOXY' NICKNAME STILL HAUNTS HER: 'THE REAL YOU IS GONE'
In her first post-acquittal return to the country in June 2019, she said during a panel discussion on criminal justice and the media that unfair coverage had labeled her “Foxy Knoxy,” a “cunning, psychopath, drug-addicted whore,” and unfairly painted her as guilty.
Amanda Knox gets emotional as she speaks at a Criminal Justice Festival at the University of Modena, Italy, Saturday, June 15, 2019. (Associated Press)
Tearing up at times, she said public opinion of her still suffered despite her successful appeal.
Writing on the blog site Medium about the panel, she also criticized “the mistakes of the Italian judicial system and the ravenous appetite of a media that does not distinguish between a person’s life and clickworthy content pushed me into the public sphere.”
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The only person whose conviction in Kercher’s death still stands is Rudy Guede, who is serving a 16-year sentence.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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